Saturday, June 30, 2012

Tell me a story! Tell me about the day I was born. Tell me about that time. Once upon a time. In the beginning. Long ago and faraway. Long ago, in someone else's story. Be the hero of your own story. The Never-ending Story.Just So Stories. So many stories, so little time, so much time -- sprawling and interminable . . . The narratives may sprawl across time and space, but only say the word, write the letter, make the call, turn on the searchlights, sit in the chair, and tell the story!

Around this same time last year we had a similar end of / beginning of (you pick!) season bean feast, after which I added the above picture to my facebook photo album. The ensuing comments yielded an instant, nearly fully formed blog post about the joy of garden beans and tomatoes, the sheroism of grandmothers, and the blessing / curse (you pick!) of air - conditioning.

My friend Paula: Sounds yummy! Garden beans are the best. Mmmm.

My cousin Maggie: Grandma's cooking yummmmmmm!

My friend Herman: Amazing what my mother did . . . no grandmothers to help; one died when I was a youngster; the other was paralyzed in a sitting position . . . she was a sweetheart but depended on others for total care . . . she died when I was 14 . . . I have strong memories of her; less strong memories of the other grandmother.

My cousin Dodie: I remember August as tomato month---Grandma and Mom would spend days in the heat processing tomatoes -- whole and juice. Blanching, peeling, sterilizing jars, hot water baths, etc. All without running water, let alone a dishwasher!!! Missouri is miserable in August -- so humid. All of us kids were outside in the fresh air, while they slaved away in the kitchen with big pots boiling on the stove.

My cousin Alicia: We have gotten spoiled by air conditioning. I personally hate it and don't think it does us good but, alas, I have others in the house to contend with. Haven't had ours on yet -- hope to hold off as long as possible! Give me a good fan and I'm set . . . Sometimes I feel I'm the only one!

My sister Peg: I've decided I don't hate a/c, but instead hate that we need it. I wish I could go all summer without a/c but I know I would be miserable without it.

My friend Katy recalled waking up early on a summer morning to the aroma of new green beans simmering in bacon grease and the anticipation of knowing what would be for supper that night! We were reminiscing about the special jars, or bowls, or coffee cans full of saved bacon grease that all the moms and grandmoms kept on the stove top for making recipes such as these.

My friend Mitzi added: Summer mornings at my grandma's were spent sitting under her big walnut tree while we "snapped" green beans. She kept her bacon grease in an old coffee can near the stove. To this day, one of my favorite meals is homegrown snap beans simmered with bacon and new potatoes.

In a midwestern twist on Proust's madeleine, those savory green beans or warm fresh tomatoes carry the essence of the past, evoking the summers of childhood, the hot kitchen, the pressure cookers, the grandmothers, the screen doors, the whirring fans, the cool front porch, the rocking chairs:

"No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. . . . And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine . . . my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

There are so many things to say about Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf's elegant interior novel of one day -- plus flashbacks -- in the life of Clarissa Parry Dalloway. I decided to start with one of my sister Peg's favorite passages:

" 'Dear Sir Harry!' she [Clarissa] said, going up to the fine fellow who had produced more bad pictures than any other two Academicians in the whole of St. John's Wood (they were always of cattle, standing in sunset pools absorbing moisture, or signifying, for he had a certain range of gesture, by the raising of one foreleg and the toss of the antlers, 'the Approach of the Stranger' --all his activities, dining out, racing, were founded on cattle standing absorbing moisture in sunset pools)" (266).

Peg wrote: "I just love the thought of such a banal subject as cows standing around in ponds at sunset 'absorbing moisture.' Still makes me smile."

Cows Watering

Seems that Woolf may have had artist William M. Hart in mind
when she created the character of Sir Harry.

I told Peg at the time that her observation about the cow painting was perfect for my Quotidian blog because she expresses so well the thought that the cows are quotidian! Sir Harry keeps us grounded -- maybe in a boring way, but also in a good way!

A week or so after my Fortnightly post about Mrs. Dalloway, Sir Harry, and the cow paintings, Peg had one of those "connection and coincidence" moments that my blogs are all about! Synchronicity!

She wrote to say: "I opened The Frederick [MD] News-Post this morning [Friday, 22 June] and on the front page they had Sir Harry's cows (see below). I couldn't believe the pictures when I first saw it after the discussions I've had this week with you about Mrs. Dalloway. Don't the cows in this picture perfectly exemplify cattle standing in sunset pools absorbing moisture?"

Sunday, June 24, 2012

A couple of days ago, Gerry told me that he had come across a really good quotation about action.

I got all excited and jumped the gun: "Oh is it the one about "right action is freedom"?

No, that wasn't it. Gerry's new quote was new for me also:

"Action is eloquence."

from Shakespeare's Coriolanus
I read Coriolanus once years ago but can't recall ever learning this passage. Thus, I'm counting it as a new -- and intriguing concept -- to think about. Or, even better, to act upon!

Still, though I couldn't quite put my finger on it, that other line kept echoing through my head: "Right action . . . right action . . . right action."

Then yesterday, in a completely unrelated search (or maybe not so unrelated after all!), I was browsing through my posts to find an Eliot passage that I wanted to share with a friend: we "are only undefeated / because we have gone on trying." As I got ready to cut and paste, can you guess what words came into my line of sight?

Friday, June 22, 2012

Back in the Fall of 1986, I saw this print on the cover of Reader's Digest and was immediately drawn to the white house and the latticed porch that reminded me of a house I had once lived in. Even more, I loved the endearing posture of the child holding the big patient cat in her arms. To this day, that old magazine cover resides safely, if a bit faded, between the pages of one of my poetry notebooks.

As the artist explains, this summery painting features her daughter "fetching the cat." Sam's pose is incredibly similar in a couple of wintry photographs that I have of him clutching our big, sweet, patient Josef in exactly the same classic manner:

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Nancy writes: "The origin and location of this prayer have escaped my memory. Perhaps I found it at the shrine for Saint David and St. David’s Cathedral. Or maybe I found it at the little church named for Saint Iltud in Wales. I do remember it came from a place on the Welsh Coast on the Irish Sea."

From the flowing of the tide to its ebbing
From the waxing of life to its waning
Of your peace provide us
Of your life lead us
Of your goodness give us
Of your grace grant us
Of your power protect us
Of your love lift us
And in your arms accept us
From the ebbing of the tide to its flowing
From the waning of life to its waxing

"Our life is very uneasy, every day brings surprises, apprehensions, hopes, and terrors, so that it would be impossible for a single individual to bear it all did he not always have by day and night the support of his fellows; but even so it often becomes very difficult; frequently as many as a thousand shoulders are trembling under a burden that was really meant only for one pair."

Rows of windows -- a good way to signify
the many burdens and the many shoulders . . .

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

"Phoenix:
mythical bird of great beauty,
the only one of its kind, fabled
to live 500 or 600 years in the
Arabian wilderness, to burn itself
on a funeral pyre and to rise in its
own ashes in the freshness of youth . . ."

Years ago I accompanied my mother to a local used book fair to see what we could find. As I picked up a well worn poetry anthology, the first page, featuring a simply drawn Phoenix, broke loose from the binding and fluttered out onto the dusty table. My mom proceeded to purchase the book for me because I was so drawn to this mystical frontispiece, which I stuck back inside the front cover for safekeeping.

When I got home, I placed it in the little frame that you can see below and kept it propped on my desk all through college and grad school. Since then, I've read many more elaborate descriptions and seen many more intricate paintings of the famed and noble Phoenix, but this is still the one -- always propped somewhere amongst my papers and notebooks -- that inspires me with the hope of eternal creativity. I can no longer say for sure what became of the poetry book or even what it looked like, but it was really the Phoenix -- still with me! -- that I was after.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Although it certainly seems as if Summer is well and truly underway, I have to remind myself every day that, calendrically speaking, it is still Spring ~ late Spring ~ for eleven more days. Just yesterday, Gerry was pointing out the robustness of our growing plum tree, and I was reminded of

1. this ancient poem about the transformation of pear blossoms into fruit . . . of Spring into Summer . . . of months into years.

The flower of the pear-tree gathers and turns to fruit;
The swallows' eggs have hatched into young birds.
When the Seasons' changes thus confront the mind
What comfort can the Doctrine of Tao give?
It will teach me to watch the days and months fly
Without grieving that Youth slips away;
If the Fleeting World is but a long dream,
It does not matter whether one is young or old.
But ever since the day that my friend left my side
And has lived in exile in the City of Chiang-ling,
There is one wish I cannot quite destroy:
That from time to time we may chance to meet again.

"Mono no aware (物の哀れ?), literally "the pathos of things", and also translated as "an empathy toward things", or "a sensitivity to ephemera", is a Japanese term used to describe the awareness of impermanence (無常 mujō?), or transience of things, and a gentle sadness (or wistfulness) at their passing." ~

Thursday, June 7, 2012

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

by W. H. Auden

DEPARTMENTAL

OR,

THE END OF MY ANT JERRY

An ant on the tablecloth
Ran into a dormant moth
Of many times his size.
He showed not the least surprise.
His business wasn't with such.
He gave it scarcely a touch,
And was off on his duty run.
Yet if he encountered one
Of the hive's enquiry squad
Whose work is to find out God
And the nature of time and space,
He would put him onto the case.
Ants are a curious race;
One crossing with hurried tread
The body of one of their dead
Isn't given a moment's arrest-
Seems not even impressed.
But he no doubt reports to any
With whom he crosses antennae,
And they no doubt report
To the higher-up at court.
Then word goes forth in Formic:
"Death's come to Jerry McCormic,
Our selfless forager Jerry.
Will the special Janizary
Whose office it is to bury
The dead of the commissary
Go bring him home to his people.
Lay him in state on a sepal.
Wrap him for shroud in a petal.
Embalm him with ichor of nettle.
This is the word of your Queen."
And presently on the scene
Appears a solemn mortician;
And taking formal position,
With feelers calmly atwiddle,
Seizes the dead by the middle,
And heaving him high in air,
Carries him out of there.
No one stands round to stare.
It is nobody else's affair
It couldn't be called ungentle
But how thoroughly departmental

Saturday, June 2, 2012

"Let him [the American Scholar] not quit his belief that a popgun is a popgun, though the ancient and honorable of the earth affirm it to be the crack of doom. In silence, in steadiness, in severe abstraction, let him hold by himself; add observation to observation, patient of neglect, patient of reproach, and bide his own time, -- happy enough if he can satisfy himself alone that this day he has seen something truly. . . . The world is his who can see through its pretension. Success treads on every right step.

"For the instinct is sure that prompts him to tell his brother what he thinks. He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all minds."

Our Birthday Song
Close your eyes, make a wish.
I hope your wish comes true.
A very happy birthday I wish for you.

When I was in primary school at Euguene Field Elementary, in Neosho, Missouri, our music teacher, Mrs. McNabb played this pretty little song on her autoharp whenever anyone had a birthday. It always made such a nice change from the usual "Happy Birthday to You."

I have never heard it sung or played anywhere else since then and have never been able to identify composer or lyricist; but, even so, the simple tune has never left my memory. When Ben & Sam came along, I sang it regularly as their bedtime song, replacing "birthday" with whatever occasion was appropriate: "a very Happy Monday," "a very Happy St. Patrick's Day," "a very happy going to the swimming pool day" -- that kind of thing. We still do it every now and then for old time's sake.

About Me

Married to Gerry McCartney, Two Sons, Two Cats, Ph.D. in English
(Modern British Fiction; Univ. of Notre Dame), author of Created In Our Image: The Miniature Body of the Doll; one of six sibs, including a twin
brother.

HOLIDAY FASHION TIP

"The only way to atone for being occasionally a little overdressed is by being always absolutely over-educated." --Oscar Wilde

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QUOTIDIAN

Photo by Dagmar Murray Chicago February 2009 [Click Photo for Info]

"It is out of the dailiness of life that one is driven into the deepest recesses of the self."

~ Stanley Kunitz

Elizabeth Bishop was "aware of the small-

ness and dignity of human observation."

~David Kalstone

"Why shouldn't we, so generally addicted to the gigantic, at last have some small works of art, some short poems, short pieces of music [. . .] some intimate, low-voiced, and delicate things in our mostly huge and roaring, glaring world?~Elizabeth Bishop

"Ordinary Things: It's hardest to love the ordinary things, she said, but you get lots of opportunities to practice."

"Let us not take it for granted that life exists more fully in what is commonly thought big than in what is commonly thought small."

and

"Down, down into the midst of ordinary things."~Virginia Woolf, British novelist(1882 - 1941)

" . . . the skills of the ordinary, dutiful choring that made up most of every life, and was so much the worth and the pride of that life, by local reckoning."~Marilynne Robinson,

American novelist(b. 1943)from her novel Home, 61

"The big ideas huddlein the jar together.You spread them overthe black bread of day after dayand swallow them."~Quinton Duval, American Poet(1948 - 2010)

"I made a list of things I haveto remember and a listof things I want to forget,but I see they are the same list."~Linda Pastan, American Poet(b 1932)

"Don't sweat the small stuff, and its all small stuff. That's absurd. Lots of small stuff is really big. . . . The essence of the season lies in figuring out what small stuff is passing minutiae and what is enduring memory. Come to think of it, that may well be the essence of everything."~Anna Quindlen, American writer(b 1953)

Simple Words At Parting

but worlds are madeof hello and goodbye:glad sorry or both(big little and all)

from 73 POEMSby e.e. cummings

The few simple wordsat parting, that meanso much to him whostays, to him who goes

from the novel Wattby Samuel Beckett

in this beautythe car stops . . .and one of you looks back . . .you may touch one another's lips,or notit hardly makes any difference,so beautiful is desire

from the poem "Desire"by Lee Perron

Mary sighed, for the feeling again came over her that it was very flat to be left alone.

Mournful is't to say farewell,though for few brief hours we part; in that absence who can tell what may come to wring the heart.~Anon. quoted in Mary Barton, chap 17

from the novel Mary Bartonby Elizabeth Gaskell

. . . so much depends,she thought, upon distance:whether people are near usor far from us.

from To the Lighthouseby Virginia Woolf

Why Write?

“We write to taste lifetwice, in the momentand in retrospection.”~ Anais Nin

"In fact, I didn't expect thatanybody would be interestedin my kind of writing.I was interested, andthis was for me enough.~I. B. Singer

"Possibly the book may not sell,but that is nothing --it was written for love."~Mark Twain

"I am just going to writebecause I cannot help it."~Charlotte Bronte

"It is not often thatsomeone comes alongwho is a true friendand a good writer.Charlotte was both."

from Charlotte's Web~ E. B. White"A writer -- and, I believe, generally all persons --must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art."~Jorge Luis BorgesArgentine writer (1899-1986)

"When you are very honest with yourself, and brave enough, you can express yourself fully. Whatever people may think,it is all right. Just be yourself. That is actual practice, your actual life." ~Suzuki Roshi

"How do I know what I thinktill I see what I say."~E. M. Forster

"If you have a story that seems worth telling, and you think you can tell it worthily, then the thing for you to do is tell it, regardless of whether it has to do with sex, sailors, or mounted policemen."~Dashiell Hammett

THE PRICE OF EXPERIENCE

You have learned something.That always feels at firstas if you have lost something."

by George Bernard Shaw

In much wisdom is much grief:and those who increase knowledgeincrease sorrow.

from Ecclesiastes 1: 18

What is the price of experience?Do you buy if for a song --Or wisdom for a dancein the street?No. It is bought with the priceof all that you have:your heart,your home,your children.

by William Blake

The naive ecstasies of her girlhood had longsince departed -- the price paid for experienceand self-possession and a true vision of things.

by Arnold Bennettfrom The Old Wives' Tale

I want them to know that I cannot ever feelabout the world the way I might have felthad they never come near me.

by Mary Gordonfrom the story "Violation"in Temporary Shelter

Really wanting to work up to 3 dimensions, but not sure it'll be as fun as everyone says. It's hard to trust anyone who's already doing it, he said. They never remember what they lost to get there.

From StoryPeople:by Brian Andreas

Little Book of Forgiveness

When you are trying to decide whether someone deserves your forgiveness, you are asking the wrong question. Ask instead whether you deserve to be someone who consistently forgives. (17)

The most efficient forgiveness answers attack just as it happens, neither by condoning nor opposing it, but by staunchly offering correction of its senselessness. (26)

When did you decide that you had the power to ruin your whole life? How do you know how much healing is possible? Are you in charge of all creation? Are you calling all the shots? (40)

Never forget that to forgive yourself is to release trapped energy that could be doing good work in the world. Thus, to judge and condemn yourself is a form of selfishness. Self - prosecution is never noble; it does no one a service. (41)

If your first attempts at self - forgiveness seem to change nothing in the way you feel, you are impatient for magic. Like an incantation, the steps of forgiving yourself may need many solemn repetitions before a door in your mind opens to real change. The change happens within you but comes from beyond you; you are only the Magician's helper. (44)

Don't be fooled by the subtlety of some self - punishments, and do not mistake what is habitual for what is natural. Brooding, resenting, feeling bored, and frequently reviewing your laundry list of grumbles may seem like innocent reactions to a cruel world. In fact these are all ways in which your attention wanders from the purpose of healing, the only worthwhile work in the world. (45)

Ultimately, forgiveness means letting go of this world, a darkened, fractured glass through which we see love only dimly. As our frightened grip on all that is temporary relaxes, we will increasingly find our authentic strength in that which is timeless, boundless, inexhaustible, and omnipresent. (76)

from D. Patrick Miller's A Little Book of Forgiveness:Challenges and Meditations forAnyone with Something to Forgive (1994)

Forgiveness

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. ~ Gandhi

"Then I realized something: That last thought had brought no sting with it. Closing Sohrab's door, I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night" (359).~ Khaled Hosseini

“In fact, not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and waiting for the rat to die”~ Anne Lamott

"Forgiveness means giving up all hope of having had a better past."~ Anne Lamott

And similarly: "Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past."~ Lily Tomlin

“Forgiveness is not about forgetting. It is about letting go of another person's throat."~ William P. Young

Forgive & Forget?

"He kisses my fingers; he thinks we have all been cured. He believes in amnesia, he will never mention it again. It should hurt less each time."

Margaret Atwoodfrom the story "Under Glass

"Was this easy?May this be washed in Lethe, and forgotten?"

William Shakespearefrom Henry IV, Part 2

A Course in Miracles

Can't say that I'm entirely sure what all of these mean, but since this title -- A Course in Miracles -- has appeared several times in my recent reading, I decided to take a look. Here are a few thoughts gleaned from the Preface and Chapter 1.

"The body appears to be largely
self-motivated and independent,
yet it actually responds only
to the intentions of the mind."

"Forgiveness . . . reflects the
law of Heaven that giving and
receiving are the same."

"Forgiveness is the means by
which we will remember" [our
forgotten reality of oneness
with Heaven].

"Miracles are natural.
When they do not occur
something has gone wrong."

"Miracles . . . supply a lack;
they are performed by those who
temporarily have more for those
who temporarily have less."

"Each day should be devoted to
miracles. The purpose of time
is to enable you to learn how
to use time constructively.
It is thus a teaching device
and a means to an end. Time
will cease when it is no longer
useful in facilitating learning."

"Miracles . . . reflect the laws
of eternity, not of time."

"The miracle is the only device
at your immediate disposal
for controlling time."

BUILT-IN SHIT DETECTOR

"Martha was a touchstone. She had an unfailing shit detector. She did not pick up every truth, but she picked up every lie. . . . One could trust Martha to challenge one's lies and yet not to deny one's reality. That made Martha very rare. . . . Martha laughed the braying laugh she used whenever her shit detector was working."

from The Woman's Roomby Marilyn French

"You can fool too many of the people too much of the time."

from "The Owl Who Was God"by James Thurber

"There is no lie that contains no part of truth."

from "The Summer Belvedere"by Tennessee Williams

"It makes me boil, it really does!"

from A Christmas Memory

by Truman Capote

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it."

--Laurence J. Peter

"The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are right."

--Mark Twain

Gems from "Experience"

"So much of our time is preparation, so much is routine, and so much retrospect . . . It takes a good deal of time to eat or to sleep, or to earn a hundred dollars, and a very little time to entertain a hope and an insight which becomes the light of our life."

"The years teach muchwhich the days never know."

"From the mountainyou see the mountain."

"To fill the hour, -- that is happiness."

"To live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom."

"Five minutes of today are worthas much to me, as five minutesin the next millennium."

Let us treat the men and womenwell: treat them as if they werereal: perhaps they are."

"The great gifts arenot got by analysis.Everything goodis on the highway."

"People forget that it is the eye which makes the horizon."The true romance whichthe world exists to realize,will be the transformationof genius into practical power."

from Ralph Waldo Emerson'sessay, "Experience," 1844

Nothing To Live Against

Helpful insights fromMargaret Atwood'sTrue Stories

from True Romances #3

friend 1: " . . . what am I going to do, now that he's left me and I have nothing to live for?"

friend 2: "Who told you it has to be for anything? . . . were you living for him when he was there?"

friend 1: " No . . . I was living in spite of him, I was living against him."

friend 2: "Then you should say, I have nothing to live against."

friend 1: "It's the same thing, isn't it?"

friend 2: "No."

from True Romances #2

"A long time ago I was desperately in love. Desperately is what I mean, in fact you could leave out the love and still get a good picture."

Favorites from Sappho

#2
We shall enjoy it
As for him who finds
fault, may silliness
and sorrow take him!

#28
For her sake
We ask you
to come now

O Graces
O rosy-armed
perfection:

God's daughters

#59
I said, Sappho
Enough! Why
try to move
a hard heart?

#60
You may forget but
Let me tell you
this: someone in
some future time
will think of us

#69
This way, that way
I do not know
what to do: I
am of two minds

#73
Yes, it is pretty
But come, dear, need
you pride yourself
that much on a ring?

#76
Sappho, when some fool
Explodes rage
in your breast
hold back that
yapping tongue!

#79
Really . . .
My disposition
is not at all
spiteful: I have
a childlike heart.

A charm against fear

As heaven and earth are not afraid,and never suffer loss or harm,Even so, my spirit, be not afraid.

As day and night are not afraid,nor ever suffer loss or harm,Even so, my spirit, be not afraid.

As sun and moon are not afraid,nor ever suffer loss or harm,Even so my spirit, be not afraid.

As truth and falsehood have no fear,nor ever suffer loss or harm,Even so, my spirit, be not afraid.

As what has been and what shall be fear not,nor ever suffer loss or harm,Even so, my spirit, be not afraid.

Hymn XV, from the Atharva Veda

And

from Brian Andreas / StoryPeople:

busy workAt a certain point,feeling afraidis a bad habitfrom when you thoughtbeing afraidwould somehowhelp.Here’s the thingyou should know:it doesn’t.Feel free to stopany time.

&

outside voiceA lot of stuff changes once you figure outthe voices you hear in your head haveno idea what they’re talking about.If they knew anything at all aboutthe world, they’d stop in amazementbecause why waste all that timetalking when you could be spinningaround & around laughing &soaking it all in?

And

from Tennessee Williams:

“The world is a violent and mercurial — it will have its way with you. We are saved only by love — love for each other and the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share: being a parent; being a writer; being a painter; being a friend. We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love.”

Antidotes for Fretfulness

All shall be well
and all shall be well
and all manner of things
shall be well.

--Dame Juliana of Norwich
14th Century Mystic
(1342 - 1416)

"I wish for you
some new love
at lovely things,
some new forgetfulness
at teasing things,
some higher pride
in the praising things,
some sweeter peace
from the hurrying things,
and some closer fence
from the worrying things."

--John Ruskin
English art critic
(1819 - 1900)

"Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsover things are just, whatsover things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue andif there be any praise,think on these things."

Philippians 4: 8

Not Even On My Radar

One day last summer I received a thumbs up from my darling niece Amy when we apparently, at a 4-way stop, annoyed another driver, who expressed an opinion of my driving by honking. Amy, bless her heart, was outraged on my behalf. I assured her, "Oh, not to worry; that's not even on my radar," and we proceeded on our way.